BD - Chapter 434 - Choosing Ene-Bees (Patreon)

Ultimately…it was the First of the Fifth who spoke up first.

“Think…chimeric better. Eating hive mana hurts entire hive of hives, makes harder make honey, makes harder coordinate, makes harder raise immortals. Chimeric just need give workers and honey, hive of hives already does for lots of bees.”

The hive of hives slowly began to dance in response. The Firstborn, however, raised an objection.

“But…chimeric helpful? Phantom eat hive mana, but also can protect bees. Spend hive mana make King less sad? Like immortals? Chimeric that helpful?”

The First of the Second buzzed her wings.

“But…have bad feeling about phantom. Hive mana important, makes hive of hives. If eat too much, hive can’t work…and King said phantoms eat ALL hive mana if grow too big…”

The Firstborn considered that.

“Is risky, yes. So…what chimerics do?”

The First of the Fifth rejoined the dance, her antennae twitching.

“King said take parts of different bees and combine, turn into new bees…so like raising hybrid! Maybe could help figure out new hybrids!”

The First of the Second’s antennae twitched about.

“If can combine bees…could combine toxic and swimming? Try swim in new poison lake?”

The First of the Fourth joined the dance, zipping around as it picked up speed.

“Not just bee types, King said parts of bees, right? Maybe can make knight with glaiver stinger?!”

The Firstborn pondered for a moment before starting her own dance.

“Or…could combine communers with captain? Make communer that can fight, or captain that connects to hive of hives?”

All the bee army queens started to dance in response to that. The dances quickly spread through the hive of hives and soon enough the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter turned to Belissar.

“King, hive of hives thinks chimeric best. Need hive mana so easier support than phantom, think can combine bee parts and be helpful.”

Belissar smiled.

“Then that’s what we’ll do…though, we do have two more choices. Should we take a look at those before we confirm the decision?”

The First Daughter happily danced a salute.

“Ok!”

Belissar did turn to his two dungeon master friends before moving on.

“Either of you have anything to add before we move on? Anything we missed?”

Tarwantrad shook her head and smiled.

“You and your bees have made a well-thought-out choice. You know as well as I how powerful cross-pollination can be for flowers, these chimeric bees can do that on an individual level, grafting on useful parts as needed. That flexibility is powerful, as well as the ability to make new combinations there might not be an evolution for.”

Finnakynne nodded.

“Also, mana vampires, especially incorporeal ones, are no joke for magical beings. The bees are right to be wary of them, particularly if they’re acting nice. And if you really want something like that, your bees could try to grow more magical and eventually evolve into mana-based beings. In fact…you already have the bloodsucking bees and they drink mana along with blood, right? You might be able to come up with something like a phantom bee eventually, one that doesn’t specifically target other bees…”

The First Daughter’s antennae twitched and Belissar soon noticed another wave of excited dancing through the hive of hive, discussing Tarwantrad’s comparison with cross-pollination. He nodded in gratitude at both of the Circle masters, now a bit more relieved with the choice.

And now, he was finally ready to move on to the next one. He gave the bees a big grin.

“Well, after that choice…who’s ready for some flowers?”

The bees were far more excited for this choice, as Belissar opened it up.

Please select a room feature:

- Random Epic Resource Plant

- Soul-Draining Spiderling (Rarity: Epic, Type: Nature, Trap)

- Heartseeker Ironthorn Cholla (Rarity: Epic, Type: Nature, Trap)

Belissar’s smile only grew. Those all sounded impressive, even the random option, while a bit risky, promised a powerful new resource for his Tower and his bees. Still, he couldn’t exactly analyze it before hand, so he focused on the two that he could.

Soul-Draining Spiderling

Type: Nature, Trap

Mana Upkeep: 40 to enable in compatible rooms, 80 per node

Description: This species of spiderling contains an exceptional amount of Nature mana within itself. As such, it needs an equally exceptional amount of a Nature mana for its seeds to sprout and grow. To acquire the necessary mana, the Soul-Draining Spiderling preys upon other living things.

Its seeds are deceptively harmless, at least at first. Tiny spines and sticky sap let them attach to scales and fur and clothing with ease and without causing any harm to their target and they then change color to blend in with their surroundings, so the target is often completely unaware that they had even touched the flower. But, once removed from their parent plant, the seeds begin draining the mana and lifeforce of nearby creatures and converting it into Nature mana for their own use. They are referred to as soul-draining because anyone who has picked up their seeds will slowly grow exhausted as their very life is drained out of them, generally with them none-the-wiser as to the true cause until it is too late.

If they are discovered and removed, the seeds will vastly speed up their drain in a last-ditch effort to acquire the resources they need. Removing many seeds at once can be as dangerous as leaving them be…and will prove difficult in and of itself. The seeds latch onto both the bodies and mana of their targets and use the drained mana to reinforce their grip, growing more and more difficult to remove the longer they go unnoticed.

The adult plants do maintain this ability but generally won’t rely on it for sustenance once grown. They will, however, absolutely start draining the life of anything that actively threatens them, and have a much greater range than the seeds, as many tempted by their powerful Nature mana have discovered.

Belissar made a bit of a smirk.

“Well, if we wanted life and mana stealing things…I guess flowers are doing that too now.”

Tarwantrad giggled.

“I guess so, but, Belissar, consider this: they won’t do it to the bees.”

Belissar tilted his head.

“Are you sure?”

Tarwantrad beamed.

“It’s the seeds that are dangerous, right? Seeds only form after the bees have come and gone, so they won’t bother pollinators.”

Belissar’s eyes widened.

“Ah…that’s a good point!”

Finnakynne, meanwhile, made a wry smile.

“Well, Beely, if you really want mana vampire bees…there’s a flower for them. Honestly, what would soul-draining honey even look like? Does it steal your mana when you eat it? How would that work?”

Tarwantrad shrugged.

“I would guess that the honey just has a bunch of Nature mana, rather than the draining effect? They wouldn’t want to kill their pollinators after all.”

Finnakynne crossed her arms and pouted.

“That’s the boring answer, Tarwantrad!”

That got a chuckle out of Belissar, then he moved on to read out the third option.

Heartseeker Ironthorn Cholla

Type: Nature, Trap

Mana Upkeep: 40 to enable in compatible rooms, 80 per node

Description: A cacti covered in sharp spikes harder than steel, as many unfortunate wanderers have discovered. These spikes have been known to pierce through nearly any armor, metal and monstrous alike, and embed themselves deep within anything that happened to touch the cacti.

That alone would be bad enough, but the spikes themselves are insidiously designed. They are covered in microscopic barbs, tearing and shredding whenever they are moved, and the barbs are shaped in such a way that they tend to dig themselves deeper when someone attempts to remove them. And if the spine is actually about to be removed…it bursts and shatters, sending sharp fragments deep into the body. There have been instances of such fragments striking vital organs with lethal effect, which is where this species got its name. The barbs are also attracted to mana, so they do tend to orient towards the center of their victims when moved, increasing the chance lethal injuries.

Belissar crossed his arms and hummed at the flower’s deadly description.

“Well…they’ll certainly be good for the trap fields. If we filled the Bog with these instead of thorny roses, that’d be tough to deal with…though, I’m guessing they only go in the desert like the crystalspine cactus?”

Tarwantrad smiled.

“Indeed, it would. But yes, the Bog is far too wet for them.”

Belissar glanced at her and Finnakynne.

“Any advice, you two?”

Tarwantrad pondered for a moment, then shrugged.

“They both have their value, it really just depends on if you want to focus on mana or on physical damage.”

Finnakynne nodded along.

“That and time versus effect. The Hunger’s shades are, in a way, like mana-based beings, so a soul-drainer seed is practically a death sentence if they don’t remove it quickly. But it will take time for those to do their work, while the heartseekers do their damage a lot faster. So do you want fast physical damage, but that’s really obvious, or do you want unlimited mana and life draining, but that takes time and has to go unnoticed to work?”

Belissar considered that. The heartseeker cholla would be a much improved thorny roses, a barrier that would inflict severe damage on anything that attempted to cross it…though, it couldn’t be applied to the Bog, so it might be a bit limited in location. The soul-draining spiderling, meanwhile, would be a way to finish off shades while they were otherwise delayed…like by the thorny roses and gravilions of the Bog. It was kind of like the toxic mist or the assassin bees, a quiet means of dooming a shade.

But Belissar would not share his opinions until he heard the bees’ own, so he turned to the First Daughter.

“What does the hive of hives think? We can also get an epic resource flower, we won’t know what beforehand but it might be better for foraging if its something we can grow.”

The First Daughter saluted as the hive of hives danced and discussed. Belissar was content to watch them…but then, an unexpected participant intervened. Belstablom flew towards Belissar, spun around in a loop, and then landed on the ground in front of him. Belissar duly crouched down.

“What is it?”

The divine bumbledryad then started to glow, forest green and light purple light mixing together in between her antennae. There was a particularly bright flash before the glow faded…

And in its wake, an innocuous, flat green seed lay on the ground.

Tarwantrad’s eyes went as wide as they could go.

“Is that…did she just…create a seed?!”

Belstablom responded by taking off and flying happy loops around Belissar.

Author’s Note:

Amazing, incredible! Bumbledryad best dryad! A bee that makes flowers that can make more bees! The best loop!

Flower one might never leave Belstablom’s side now, though.

As for the cuckoo bees, thank you everyone for your input! As you can see, the hive of hives chose chimeric. In my humble opinion, I think it comes down to hive mana. There’s a growing sense within the hive of hives that hive mana is an incredibly important resource and the existence of immortals, as well as dancers and ministers, have all already shown the hive of hives that there’s a lot that can be done with it. So, if chimerics and phantoms were considered of equal potential benefits, the hive of hives would choose chimeric simply because they’d rather donate workers and honey than have phantoms eating the hive mana. Well, giving up workers and honey does also affect hive mana, but it’s a more indirect, opportunity-cost kind of effect and perhaps a bit easier to manage.

In any case, that meant that the only thing preventing the hive of hives from choosing chimeric is whether or not they can understand the benefits chimerics can offer, since phantoms do seem to offer more benefits on the surface. In a way, that’s exactly how phantoms operate: they offer overt, tangible benefits to their hosts and even support their growth…all so that they can prey upon stronger hive mana later on, while chimerics don’t feel the need to woo their victims. If anything, they want to quickly plunder their hosts so they can move onto another and hit as many as possible, so they’re more outwardly hostile…on the surface, at least.

So, once the hive of hives started brainstorming and realizing a bit of what chimerics are about, that quickly caught them up in the calculus. Maybe the hive of hives still doesn’t fully understand the potential and maybe phantoms still seem more helpful, but that’s counterbalanced by the greater cost. The chimerics just had to seem useful enough and the hive of hives’ bad feeling about losing hive mana would do the rest.

So, chimerics it is. I did like phantoms and had some cool ideas for them…but maybe we already have bees that prey upon other things…other things like non-bees. And we do already have some bees living in highly mana-dense environments who are constantly absorbing lots of magic into their bodies…maybe the idea of a mana-based bee isn’t over just yet…

Anyways!

Has the hive of hives selected the right parasite? What did Belstablom just make for King? Will flower one ever leave Belstablom’s side now? Tune in next time, to find out!